


When the Music's Over

by Sulwen



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Glam Rock RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-22
Updated: 2010-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sulwen/pseuds/Sulwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tour ends, and everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Music's Over

Adam lets himself in and flops down on the couch without a single word, and Tommy's left just staring down at him, wondering what's going through that crazy brilliant head of his now.

There's silence for a long time, Adam's eyes closed, Tommy watching him, waiting. Finally, Tommy shifts and asks, tentatively, “Adam? Is everything...are you ok?”

Adam makes some kind of mumbled noise that doesn't really even resemble words, but it doesn't matter. He's obviously not happy.

“Did something happen?”

Adam's eyes open, and his jaw sets, and he fixes a glare on the ceiling. “No.”

Tommy bites his lip. “Well...that's good.” There's a trace of remembered instinct in him, an urge to go sit by Adam and run his fingers through his hair, but that's not right. That's tour thinking, and ever since they've been back in LA, things have been different. Not...bad, really. Just different.

But it's a problem, too, because somehow they ended up being on the road so long that Tommy doesn't remember how he dealt with an upset Adam beforehand, and anyway, he kind of thinks that he wasn't the one Adam came to back then anyway. The tour changed things, all those long months on the road and in the sky...but it didn't come with a guide, directions for how things were supposed to go after. Tommy kind of understands it, a little. They've gone through this crazy, horrible, amazing, magical, life-changing thing together, and now, on the other side of it, the whole world looks different, a changed place that's taking some getting used to. A lot of getting used to. But anyway, it's not the world that's changed. It's them.

Tommy holds both hands to his head and closes his eyes. Damn Adam. He never used to think about things like this before he met Adam, and now there's no going back. It's like Adam's gotten inside his head, an infection, a parasite, crawling through his thoughts and pushing them to places they would never have gone on their own. He wonders if he's inside Adam's head. Probably not. He doesn't leave an impression like Adam does.

He opens his eyes and looks down at Adam again, who's still glaring at the ceiling and has now started grinding his teeth - _grind, grind, grind,_ a slow back-and-forth that Tommy can see in the tensing of his jaw. His own teeth hurt in sympathy, but there's something twinging deep inside him that hurts worse, something that remembers how Adam only grinds his teeth when he's really on edge, really struggling. It sets off a hurried conversation with himself in his head, and he hates how self-conscious he is right now, how much he's thinking about every move, every word, because being with Adam has always been organic and spontaneous and natural, and this is _wrong._ But nothing else feels any more right.

_Come on, idiot, think. What would you do if Dave did this?_

_Dave wouldn't do this._

_Fuck you. What if he did?_

“Um...want a beer?” Tommy asks.

Adam rolls his eyes. Hard. “Ugh, _no.”_ Then he seems to remember himself and glances at Tommy apologetically. “I mean, no thanks.”

Silence again, even longer this time, and _awkward_ like things never are between them. Well. Never were. Not on tour.

There's actually been a lot of awkwardness since they got back, silences that go too long, eyes that slip away from each other like wrong-ended magnets, a nervousness that's never been there before, not even on day one, on audition day. Tommy hates it, and sometimes he thinks he would give anything to go back to touring, just hop back on the bus and _go_ somewhere, get back into that too-small space that forced them together and took away the need to think about the closeness. Because yeah, touring sucked, drained everything you had out of you and still demanded more, but it was still better than this purgatory, unsure of every word, afraid of every touch.

The tingling starts so small that he barely even notices it, on the back of his neck, the pulse points of his wrists. It ramps up quickly, goosebumps running up his arms, a shiver shooting up through him from the base of his spine. He glances up, eyes wide, to find Adam staring at him... _into_ him, in that crazy intense way he does, and he wants to close his eyes, look at something else, _anything_ else. He doesn't.

Looking into Adam's eyes, here, now, feels like the most intimate thing they've ever done. Tommy's had Adam's hands all over him and Adam's tongue practically down his throat and Adam's body fitted right up against him, the whole long line of him, but this is different. This feels... _real._

He's frozen, anchored to the spot by fear and uncertainty and the weight of a thousand possible consequences on his shoulders, what-ifs spiraling around in his head until he's dizzy with them. He wants to speak, wants to move. Can't. _Can't._

It's almost shocking when Adam breaks the stillness, and with it whatever connection is between them, firing between their eyes like electricity, like lightning. He shoves up off the couch and heads for the door, not sparing Tommy a second look, muttering some excuse that _sounds_ like an excuse, just a reason to get out.

“Wait...” The word is soft, broken and cracked like old stone, like mud weeks removed from the rain, but it's enough to get Adam to stop in his tracks, still facing away, facing the door and escape and a decision Tommy doesn't want him to make.

Adam's voice is low when he speaks, low and sober like Tommy's never heard it before. “I can't. I _can't,_ Tommy. I thought I could. I thought I could be your friend, really, and be happy. And maybe on tour I could. But take away all the...” He waves a hand, unable to find the right words, but Tommy knows exactly what he means. A thousand touches, a hundred cuddles, dozens of kisses. None of it _real,_ all of it part of the timeless, placeless dream-world of touring, but perhaps enough. Enough to act as a consolation prize. Take that away... “...and I just...I wish I was stronger than that, _better_ than that, but I'm not. It's all twisted up in my head, and I can't untangle it...can't get back to where I used to be. Fucked it up, fucked it _all_ up, and you went ahead and _let_ me.”

It's the note of self-loathing in Adam's voice that finally gets Tommy moving. He hardly even realizes he's doing it, too caught up in the horrible realization that he's the cause of all that pain behind Adam's eyes. Then, suddenly, somehow, he's pressed right up against Adam's back, wrapping his arms around Adam's body and holding tight, resting his head between Adam's shoulder blades. Adam goes tense, so tense he's shaking with it, and Tommy holds his breath and hopes. There are words, so many words, but they're all choked up in his throat, and none of them want to move. Finally, finally, Adam relaxes, and all the air rushes out of Tommy's lungs, a wordless breath of gratitude to the universe. Not too late. Not yet.

He slips around to Adam's front, to face him, and forces himself to look up, to meet Adam's eyes again. The position feels so familiar, and yet odd without an instrument in his hands, without the throbbing music and the screaming crowd. Nothing left but the two of them and the silence. Adam's eyes are red and raw, and pinched at the corners with the beginnings of age lines, all the stress and joy and laughter of his life written there for anyone who looks closely to see. Tommy looks, looks _close,_ and tries to express all the words he can't say with his features instead, with the curve of lips and the quirk of an eyebrow and the bare unshielded emotion in his own eyes.

Adam's fingers shake as they come up beneath his chin, and Tommy can't keep looking, his eyes crashing shut and his head bowing. He feels drunk, or high, the part toward the end where everything is spinning out of control, riding the line between good and terrifying. Everything's too much, too intense, and it shouldn't mean anything, because this is nothing new, this is practically what they do for a living, except that it's _not,_ this is so many firsts, and Adam's fingers are pressing oh-so-softly into his chin, guiding his face up, tilting it just right, and Tommy knows what comes next, knows exactly what's coming and still, somehow, has absolutely no idea what to expect.

Time stops when Adam kisses him. It's barely even a kiss, just the smallest brush of lips, but it seems to last forever, an eternity where Tommy forgets to breathe and his heart forgets to beat and there's nothing, nothing left in the world, nothing that matters. Everything narrows down to that one tiny point of contact, and it's nothing like it was before, doesn't make Tommy want to giggle or smirk or joke. It only makes him want to lean up, press in, chase more. It's the only thing left in his head, so he does it, opens his mouth and fits his lips to Adam's, going after that spark, wondering if he can turn it into an explosion, into fireworks.

Adam reacts like he's been shocked back to life, blood running electric blue, eyes flaring black. His arms go around Tommy, one around his back, the other cupping the back of his head, and Tommy lets himself be pulled closer, lets Adam sink the kiss deeper and deeper, and it doesn't feel like sex, it feels like dying, like shedding his skin, changing into something new and different and _better..._ and yet at the same time, more like _himself_ than he can ever remember.

Tommy's lips are swollen by the time Adam releases him, heart racing and breath nothing but shallow gasps. He stumbles back a step, coming to rest against the door, staring at Adam.

Adam, who's staring right back, eyes wide. He licks his lips gingerly, and Tommy watches, tracks the movement, can't look away.

“So,” Adam says, still breathing hard. “That was...”

Some of the crazy over-the-top tension bleeds out of the room, and Tommy laughs and settles back into himself a little bit. “Yeah.”

“Tommy...I have to ask...do you...” Adam starts, and some of that horrible doubt is starting to creep back into his voice, that uncertainty.

Tommy cuts him off. He's had enough of that. “Adam...I _want...”_

He can't find the right words to finish the sentence, but he can hear the desperation in his own voice, the longing, and Adam hears it too, hears it and grins that supernova-bright grin of his and grabs Tommy's hands and pulls him in again, laying kisses all over his face, to the sensitive flesh of each closed eyelid and the point of his chin and the tip of his nose. He murmurs as he goes, rushed bits of words and phrases slipping out between each kiss.

“Love you... _in_ love with you...since ages...since _forever._ Thought I could never...we could never...but you're here...and you're still here...and still...”

And finally Adam's lips find Tommy's again, and Adam presses him back into the door and kisses and kisses and kisses him, kisses like he's never going to stop, and Tommy thinks that would be just fine with him.

*

They never do talk about it. They put a label on it for their friends, for their families, but words are unnecessary between the two of them and, Tommy thinks, impossible anyway. And part of him always feels like they've never quite left that tour, like they're still living in that timelessness, that placelessness, the beautiful mad intense rush of being alone, and together, and outside the world.


End file.
